Crazy Girl
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Paige's dorm fire.
1. Chapter 1

I let the flames lick the papers in the waste basket. Let the flames lick the curtains. The tiny dorm room was filling up with smoke. Good. It was going up in flames anyway. I breathed in, and maybe like wasps or bees I'd get drunk on the smoke. But I started to cough and choke and had to get out.

The fire alarm started its inhuman bray, and people started to pour out of their dorm rooms in various states of dress. I saw people in sweatpants and night glasses, the contacts carefully tucked away into the case. I saw girls with their hair pulled up into a fast ponytail, textbooks in their hands, puzzled looks on their faces. Boys in silk boxer shorts, wife beaters, bare feet. Everyone with the same dismayed puzzlement.

The fire truck sirens filled the silence of the distance and raced toward us, and I was laughing. It wasn't funny, but it was. It was a comi-tragedy. Didn't Shakespeare write those? I was living one. My college career was going up in smoke.

What had I been thinking? Was I actually thinking that I could be as effortlessly successful here as I was at Degrassi? No one cared about me here. I wasn't the Queen Bee, the most popular girl or one of the smartest. I'd gotten in because my mother had connections. I mean, I never thought, it never occurred to me, it never occurred to me that this might be too much.

I leaned against the wall and could feel the warmth from the fire creeping into the walls, seeping in. I could see the edge of the black and curling wallpaper before the firefighters doused it with their water and their chemicals. There was soot on my face, and I swiped at it with my hand. Now I looked like one of those chimney sweeping kids you saw in old Disney movies.

And I couldn't stop laughing. The puzzled looks of my fellow students were turning to anger, and points and whispers were starting to come in my direction. I knew what they were saying, 'that crazy girl, she's flunking out, she burned down her dorm room, crazy girl,' I just laughed. Shaking, bringing tears to your eyes laughter. So the dorm room was up in flames, up in smoke like Cheech and Chong. So what?

Now the firefighters' attention was turning to me, slowly, inexorably, like how the Terminator would turn to Reese and Sarah Conner in the first Terminator, and some of the laughter dried up. Beyond their thick rubber coats and boots and axes I could see my sopping wet dorm room, like some sad dog just come in from the rain.

"Miss," one of them said, the one with the handlebar gray mustache and wrinkled face. I wondered if fighting fires ages you before your time. All the smoke, all the tragedy and the drama, it must take its toll.

"Uh, yeah?" I said, still giggling a bit. I couldn't help it. I covered my mouth with my hand.

"Miss, is that your dorm room?" he said, pointing his ax toward my ruined dorm. The bright lights in the hall reflected off the blade of his ax, throwing a bit of light onto the wall. What could I say? Could I deny that it was? This had the feeling of when I'd smashed Spinner's car into Dean's. Reckless.

"Yeah, it is," I said, and I wondered if I was admitting guilt. It could have been an accident. I wasn't sure anymore if it was.

He just nodded and jotted down some information into a little notebook. I used to have a little notebook like that. I wrote down my homework assignments in it. I had been so organized, so focused, so on track. Now here I was, two failed tests and a burnt to a crisp dorm room behind me. That's a fine start to a college career.

"Your name?" he said, and I giggled again. The giggles just rose up like bubbles in a glass of beer. There was no stopping them.

"Paige Micalchuk," I said, and I thought if he asks me to spell it I'd spit on his big giant firefighter boot. But he didn't, he just flipped his notebook closed and walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

I stood outside my dorm, or what was left of it, wrapped up in a gray blanket that the firefighters brought. It seemed to me that this type of blanket was used for horses. It was scratchy, but I snuggled down into it anyway.

In the dark, the chill cold of the night, the fire soaked and put out, I couldn't help thinking about Alex. I thought about how I treated her in high school. In many ways she was one of the best things in my life. But, I know how I was. I know I tried to make her into something, some version of me, some version of herself that I would have preferred. I pushed her away. I got what I deserved. I never deserved her.

I couldn't seem to think of consequences yet. I burned down my dorm and I was flunking out. I wasn't cut out for this school, maybe, and I wasn't used to giving up. But I wasn't used to really trying, either. This is what you got when things came too easily. But was I really to blame? Was it my fault that I had breezed effortlessly through my first 18 years? Or somewhat easily? I had no basis for this, no ability to put my nose to the grindstone. But then, maybe I could develop that ability. Maybe I was finally learning something.

I didn't really want to think that way. I'd taken the train of my college career and drove it firmly off the track, and now I was in a field somewhere with a smoking and broken train, no way to get anywhere.

I wanted to go and see Alex, just for one night. I wanted to see her dark eyes flashing in dim lit rooms. I wanted to touch her shiny dark hair, her tanned skin, her chiseled features. I wanted to sink into her again and forget myself. Maybe I could reinvent myself. I didn't have to go to this school. Something about it was obviously making me miserable.

Everything was burned down, I just had the nightshirt on my back. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and headed for the quad, where I could find someone with a cell phone and I could make a call and be saved. Calling mom was out. I wasn't up for her stern look and her tone, that tone of bitter but disguised disappointment.

Who would be best to come to the rescue? I brushed past Ashley and Hazel like brushing by clothes in a closet. I didn't even know where Hazel was, I didn't know what Ashley was doing. Spin? Spin came into my head and I was comforted by the thought of him. Spinner. He was my honey bee before Alex, when I was still in control of things, somewhat. Or I thought I was. But I passed him by, too, not sure exactly what he was up to and if he'd relish rescuing a damsel in distress. Maybe Marco?

"Hi, Paige," he sounded awake enough as I stood in the shadow of the large screen T.V. that dominated the quad.

"Hi, I'm so glad I caught you. Listen, can you pick me up?"

"Where are you?" he said, and I believe I detected a tad bit of weariness in his voice.

"I'm at college. Actually, there was a little thing that happened, an accident,"

"What? What happened?" He wasn't exactly panicking, but it was getting close.

"My dorm. It kind of…burned down,"

"What? Paige? How did that happen?" he said, and I took a deep breath. I didn't think I really knew.

"Uh, well, I'm not too sure. Listen, I'm kind of miserable here. Can you come and get me?"

"Sure, of course. I'll be there as soon as I can,"

I hung up and gave the phone back to the quad jock with the Leaf's T-shirt and dumb expression, but I thanked him kindly and stared at the hockey on the screen while I waited for Marco to arrive.


End file.
